An Obligation to Dissent: McKinsey to Its Hires

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Adam Bryant, Never Swim Too Deep in Work You Don't Enjoy; Corner Office: Kerry Cooper. New York Times, Jan 24, 2014.
www.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/busin ... eer-management.html

Quote:

"when I grew up. I was blessed with parents who let me explore various things. I remember, when I was 6, telling my mom I was going to be a flight attendant. She said, 'That’s an interesting career, because you get to travel the world.' There was never any judgment, and it was really lovely to have that freedom growing up.

After college, I "worked for McKinsey. One of McKinsey’s values is that you have an obligation to dissent. And that is very freeing for a 21-year-old — not only should you have an opinion but you should speak it. It’s intimidating at first, but also very much part of who I am. When you’re told at 21 that you need to have an opinion and you should express it, you do. It’s good training.

"The other thing that someone from McKinsey told me was that you should look for a job every year, because in looking for a job every year you either practically decide that the job you have is good and you want to keep pushing at it, or you see what’s missing by exploring what else is out there. And it keeps you from getting stuck in a rut so that * * * you [will not] have that pang of wondering, 'Why am I here instead of there?'

Note:
(a) "I never opened my grades" when I attended Harvard MBA program. That means when her grades arrived in the mail, she did not open envelopes.
(b) She said during the interview, "Somebody once told me, 'Don’t get good at something you don’t enjoy,' which is very good advice. I was amazing at Excel. I could build spreadsheet models, thanks to my time at McKinsey. I do not love building models. I became good at something I really didn’t love doing, so I had to get myself out of that corner."

That, together with swimming as her childhood sport, form the basis of the title.
(c) She went to University of Texas at Austin for undergraudate study.